S&P 500 Tag

It has been a sweet sixteen weeks for the S&P 500. The broad stock market index has had only three down weeks out of the past sixteen. While this stretch is tied by the same period a year ago, it is important to note that...

Earnings have mattered a lot for the U.S. stock market. Over the past three years, earnings are up about 58% and the S&P 500 is up about 55%.* That one-to-one relationship is no coincidence. Stock market valuations, measured by the price-to-earnings ratio — or what...

In one week, President Obama is due to submit his 2013 budget, which covers the fiscal year beginning on October 1, 2012. The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 requires the President to submit a budget request to Congress on the first Monday in February, but...

President Obama’s State of the Union (SOTU), scheduled for Tuesday, January
24, is unlikely to be a big market mover. In fact, most SOTU speeches see
less than a 1% move in the stock market on the following day and the
average move is only 0.14% [Chart 1]....

Was last week’s market rally a Halloween trick or a treat for investors? European leaders announced a deal last week that produced a sigh of relief felt around the world as markets welcomed the news of a breakthrough in what had been the biggest threat...

The stock market, as measured by the S&P 500 Index, has returned to the high-end of the trading range of the past two months, as you can see in Chart 1. This is the fourth time the Index has rebounded to around the 1220 level....

U.S. stocks rose last week by 2.1%, as measured by the S&P 500 Index, once again rebounding off the low end of the range from about 1100 to 1200 that has constrained the Index for the past couple of months. The rebound was driven by...

Friday’s (September 9, 2011) stock market loss erased last week’s gain. The S&P 500 ended the week at 1154, down 1.7%, near the middle of the range of about 1120 to 1200 that has prevailed since early August 2011. The near-term outlook remains clouded and...